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Going Mobile

These days (and just saying that makes me feel even older than the half century (plus one) I already am) mobile devices are all the rage. From the Android phones to iPads and other tablets, everything is mobile.

A couple of years ago I decided I needed to go mobile as well. Now I've had a cell phone for probably twenty years or more. I used to have a page for work - it was cool when I first got it and was able to troubleshoot problems before they became issues, until I carried it for over 10 years (It was so freeing in my current job when I no longer had to carry a pager or cell phone for work). But that isn't what I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about taking my gaming mobile. More specifically, if you have seen doing demos at conventions, you will notice I have a mobile cart I use to haul everything from my car to my demo area, as well as a mobile platform for keeping track of what is going on. Once again I have a use request to go into a bit more detail on my game cart.

This didn't start off as a cart for gaming, it was a display board. The first year I went to Adepticon in 2012, I treated it like Origins or Gencon. I entered some events, but left Saturday open to browse the vendor hall. At Origins this is a great strategy, and at Gencon one full day may not be enough to see everything there. Adepticon however, despite the 'con' in the name, well not so much. The entire vendor hall took me about 10 minutes to walk through. If anything there were three short rows of booths. It has grown since then, but it still is not something you need to make sure you take a day for.

So I spent the day watching the WFB championships. One thing that I noted that I had not seen before was that there was no restriction on adult beverages - people were drinking (ok, one guy got a little out of hand, but in a funny way, not really stupid drunk). Not only could you have adult beverages, but most people bought their own. The hotel did have a beer concession window as well though.

While I was wandering around, I saw some fantastic armies and displays, but one stood out above all the rest - "Munchy Gutsmen and the Holy Gristle" - an Ogre Kingdoms army painted up as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This was done by Brandon Palmer who makes a living painting under the GMM Studios name. Check out his gallery, though I will warn you it is a LOT of pictures, and may take a while to load. The Monty python display is a about 2/3 of the way down the page. However is other fantastic stuff is also worth looking at. Seriously, go take a look, I'll wait. Now while this struck me as a fantastic army, it was the fact that it was mounted on a cart so he could just push it from table to table as he played.

One last thing to mention here. I am a home brewer. I have been since about 2009. My kids got me a home brew kit for Christmas, and I've enjoyed this hobby as well, some years brewing a lot, some not so much. My wife used to be a realtor, and while visiting a client of hers one Saturday afternoon, we noticed an old kegerator in his garage, facing backward and not plugged in. We asked him about it, and he no longer used it - so $50 later it was in my van then in my dining room. That got me started kegging my beer instead of bottling it.

So, sitting at Adepticon, I started to make connections. They had beer. Army display on a cart. I brew beer. A cart could hold a keg of beer. Warhammer plus beer - well that spells drunk dwarfs to me.

Now if you want to see the army I had the next year at Adepticon, it is on my other site - the Drunk Dwarfs. What is important though is the display, not the army itself.

The original stand was designed to hold a keg of beer, keep it cold and be able to serve it easily. So I started off with a cooler that would fit a keg. I picked the Igloo MaxCool because it was the tallest cooler, so best fit a keg

The top snaps off, but here you can see the keg (it is a Cornelius or Corny keg - a 5 gallon keg formerly used to hold pepsi soft drink syrup (until they went to plastic bags)).

In order to fit everything, I decided to go with 2'x2' for the cart. So I bought a few square pieces of plywood, as well as some 2' long 1 1'2" pvc pipes. I wanted this to be fairly light weight, as well as able to be broken down for transport. I found a place on line that sells fittings specifically for projects using PVC - Formufit. Check them out, they have a lot more than normal plumbing fittings just for various projects, and even have free plans for many things on site.

The bottom frame is four 3-way elbows for the corners, with a caster plug in the bottom of each (and casters set in them (I actually bought the wrong type of casters at first and they kept falling out every time I would lift a corner (like when getting into an elevator) - make sure you get the grip ring casters). The two foot side pipes then slide into the fittings - these are not glued in so the the cart comes apart.

A test to make sure the keg and cooler fit

The shelf was a smaller piece of plywood so there is an opening for the keg fittings on one side. This just fits onto the pipes

The top shelf uses the table caps. I cut smaller pieces of pipe to just fit my bin for my army. When I use this now for conventions, this is pretty much all I do (well except for the cooler and keg of course). I built a second table top just for that.

Cart partially assembled. I added two more fittings for 1/2" pipe, that I use to attach a poster frame made of PVC painted black, to which I have attached a Kings of War poster. This version just uses the base poster - I got a new one recently that I thought to laminate to better protect it.

Cart assembled with army bins, portable white board and poster, ready to go.

So back to the army display. As you can see, the bin for the army fits on the middle shelf.

Slides in nicely.

Next i started on the display board that would serve the beer. I had bought an old kegerator with a single tap tower that I replaced with a three tap one, so had this old tower. I mounted it in the center of one edge.

I added a board to cover the tower and provide stability.

From the back.

I then use pink insulation foam to build up the brewery. This is actually old pieces that used to be lava fields for a confrontation scenario I used to run. However since that game is several years dead, and I had lent out the board I made to someone (I don't remember who now) and never got them back (I think they were lost when Krystal Keep went under, but I'm not sure) it made sense to re-use these, as one side was textured already anyway.

I made sure the army would actually fit on the board where I wanted it.

I then covered the exposed foam with paper-mache, painted it in shades of grey, added snow flock and some water effects to make a water fall / pond.

The old pieces of insulation foam were backed with felt to protect them, so I reused it to cover the sides and back of the mountain. The first time out I just had black cloth attached with velcro to cover the cart.

My first attempt also tried to use paintball CO2 cartridges, but this didn't end up working. I now have to use one of my CO2 tanks instead.

Of course I had to test the tap!

I then made sides to improve the cart. These are simple MDF sheets (2'x4'). I added a bit of molding to the top and sides - the rivets are flat thumbtacks. I slightly mis-judged the corners though (I didn't take into account the thickness of the sides themselves), but went and bought some foam corner protectors (for baby proofing your home), added the thumbtack rivets and paint and they were good to go.

The runes were cut out of thin plasticard, and painted with a brass textured paint. I printed out a large version of the logo I had used for all the beer the dwarfs were actually drinking (as opposed to shooting at their enemies)

It surprised me how difficult it was to find a drip tray, though eventually I found a restaurant supply store that had one. I bent a piece of steel to hold it (this slides over the bolts, and has magnets to hold it in place).

I found customizable tap handles on-line - they have a clear outer cover and a black plastic core that fits inside, so you can print anything for your label. So I just use one that I had from there.

The entire display set up.

Frontal shot.

One of my favorite bits. I found this slayer on floaty (with a beer no less) from Scibor miniatures and instantly knew that I had to have him - so he is relaxing in the water supply (luckily the piping hooks up to the spring above where the dwarf is swimming in it, not afterward). I used bits from the pegasus hobbies Chemical Plant and Platformer System to make pieces of the brewery.

Finally the brewery doors were made pink foam, carved and then thin plasticard for the hinges.

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With the release of the
rules and starter lists for Kings of War 2nd Edition (if you
don’t have these – you can download them at
Mantic web site), as well as the release of
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, many people are looking to try Kings of War with
their existing Warhammer armies. This post will attempt
to describe the differences between the games.
The list may seem large, but in practicality it is quite an easy switch
from Warhammer 8th edition to Kings of War 2nd
edition. Plus there is nothing stopping
you from playing both games, or using your miniatures to play any games you
want. I will be posting more a tutorial
on how to play Kings of War later, this however is just the differences. First Kings of War is
NOT Warhammer Light. It is not based on
Warhammer. It was written by Alessio
Calvatore, who wrote Warhammer 7th edition and many Warhammer army
books. But Alessio also writes
historical war games, and the idea of ranked of units has been around since H G
Wells published “L…

At Gencon, I asked Ronnie Renton himself when the Historical supplement for Kings of War was coming out and he said next month.
This may not be the final cover, but for everyone that wants to field their Mongol Hordes or Spartans, the book will be out next month

Direct from Mantic

Releasing September 2016 (Shipping week of 26th)$39.99 MSRP Hardcover (will include rules and lists)With Kings of War Historical players can now enjoy their love of both Fantasy and Historical massed battle games! This supplement will allow for numerous armies from past ages to be played on the table top. From Samurai, Vikings and the armies of the Crusades, you can recreate your most loved periods in history!
Because it is all fun and games . . .

We've heard the rumors, we've seen the open day pictures and renders. We've been told that the studio models are being painted and we should have pictures of them soon.

But since when have we ever been content with waiting. Mighty Ape, an online retailer in Australia has pre-orders for the new Empire of Dust, which I believe is scheduled for release the end of July (remember that when Mantic gives a release date it is the date it BEGINS shipping, not when it hits retail stores)

I do want to also clarify that these are all pre-production images and lists - and they may be subject to change. The prices are my estimates - Mighty Ape has the australian prices - but those aren't in US $ and may be discounted (so I'm trying to guess at US MSRP). Also all of these come with bases for everything and mantic points, so I'm not listing those with each entry.

June sees some big releases from Mantic for Kings of War. When I say big, I mean BIG. Monstrous even.

First, in June the forces of the abyss are finally getting a model for the living legend Chroneas. Now a Chroneas is a monster, and while not unique, they are rare enough to never encounter more than one. Of course with Fireball 20, Piercing (1) and the special rule that it is NEVER disordered (i.e. the only way to stop it shooting at you is to kill it) they do seem to show up in almost everyone's list.
To help balance this out, the good armies see the release of the final dragon variant funded by the Kings of War 2nd Edition Kickstarter - the Basilean High Paladin.

The neutral players need a bit of loving as well - so the Forces of Nature (ok, the Brotherhood can take one as well) get the next Greater Elemental - water. (This leaves only the air elementa…

The new nameless faction is coming for Deadzone. You can currently pick up the faction starter and three of the leaders from your FLGS or the Mantic webstore.

So what do you get for the Nameless Deadzone faction starter? There are 12 plastic pre-assembled minis (these are the same as you get in the minion booster, and are also the same ones that are in the upcoming "Terror in the Deep" Star Saga expansion. However the deadzone starter also included six additional resin models.

So to start off are the scuttlers. Some of the weakest of the troops - these little crabs are your cheap options to fill out your troops.

Inkers are octopi that can create a smoke cloud once a game, and then again when they die.

The assassins are close combat troops

While the gunslingers are better at shooting

and when you need a bit more firepower, the riflemen back them up

Finally are the Ogres. Massive crabs ready to put the hurt on anything in the deadzone.

September Releases
Set for release in September (remember Mantic usually does their releases on the last Monday of the month).

Kings of War
Of course I'm going to start with Kings of War (if you wonder why - seriously, have you been reading much of this at all?)

MGKW10 - Kings of War Historical Armies $34.99.
No one is interested in this new Hardback rule supplement with 30 army lists ranging from ancient to around the 1500's (I think war of the roses is the most recent). Ok, seriously folks. Pre-order this NOW. I put up a little post a couple of weeks ago that wasn't much more than this picture and saying it was coming out - well that is now the #2 most view post in my blog with over 2500 views (my average is a few hundred).

Dungeon Saga
MGDS06 - Dungeon Saga: The Tyrant of Halpi - $49.99
If you want to see all the details about this what is coming in this expansion - just watch this space.

If you are like most gamers, you will someday find that you are out of room. Whether it is for the newest miniatures or board game, often physical space can get to be an issue. Even if you dedicate an entire room (or half your basement) to gaming, the number of games you have will ALWAYS increase to fill all available space.

Gamelyn Games was built to fill that very niche - with their Tiny Epic games. (OK, they have done one 'normal' size game). The Tiny Epic games are small boxes that easily can fit into your game shelf. But the games inside are anything but.

The latest in their lineup is Tiny Epic Zombies. I just received my kickstarter copy, and it is scheduled for general release in October, just in time for Halloween. Now there are a LOT of zombie themed games out there - but some of them are so overflowing with miniatures, boards and cards that you need a push cart just to carry everything (Zombicide being a great example, with more miniatures and expansions tha…

The fecal excrement is about to impact the rotational cooling device. And if you don't believe me, just look back at last year.

Yes, the new edition of the tournament 'recommendations' - Clash of Kings 2018 is coming. It has a release date set for January 22nd (Mantic seems to be moving to Monday releases instead of Fridays). This book promises to have the new narrative concluding this (or, by the time it comes out, last) years summer campaign, including the new map of Mantica, changed by the campaign. Of course this will be mostly ignored by most competitive players, as they will be turning immediately to see what changes have been made for the upcoming tournament season. New & changed units, spells and artefacts.
I can already hear the gnashing of teeth, the pulling of hair, and the clinching of sphincters as opinions explode across the internet. However since this was not able to be release in December as originally …